Small-World Phenomenon

General

The algorithmic Small-World Phenomenon

Surely the academic area of social psychology is not considered having a large degree of overlap with mathematics. Nevertheless an experiment conducted by the social psychologist Stanley Milgram in 1967 -- known as the small-world experiment -- is still in focus of current mathematic and computer scientific research for various reasons. The experiment suggests, that the most pairs of strangers in the world are connected via short chains of acquaintance.

This paper presents several attempts at modeling this phenomenon as graph and investigating structural properties of these graphs as well as the algorithmic point of view.